Come to think of it, that sounds like one of the proposed missions for the Dynasoar (Probably one of my favourite airframes along with the X-15 and the Blackbirds). Well, now I know what to do with those plane parts I just unlocked (I was considering an aircraft program that rather than working up in altitude and speed started at orbit and worked down).

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

After not accomplishing much the last few days, I sent Jeb & Kelrik on another highly classified mission to investigate an anomaly on Mun. They are bringing back some substantial science rewards, but to preserve the secrecy of the mission, they have not transmitted any information back to KSC.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Saw you post this on Twitter, wondered if they was a wheel beneath the front section or if it just skidded along on it's belly, pushed by the wheels at the rear.

I wanted it to hover like all my Star Wars stuff, but Squad put in a "fix" for that so I have wheels under there now. It's still a complete death machine though since you get a real need for speed once the rocket engines kick in. I'm going to have to nerf it before I release the craft file otherwise many Kerbals will needlessly meet their doom, and I will feel somewhat partly responsible.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

(1.6.1) Not much to show for the last 48 hours, though between the way the weather's been here lately and the ongoing issues in RL, that's not entirely unexpected.

Began my day on Tuesday by warping LSV House Atreides into a 428x180 kilometer, 5-degree inclined orbit over Kerbin; the ship had finished its mission to deliver the Echo 1 rover to the surface of Eve and was in need of resupply, and I needed it printing up a Merde-to-the-N 7 transfer stage, so it was time to send it home. I realized the M-T-N would be a pretty significant print job and I didn't necessarily want Ceri doing it by herself, and Ceri had earned certifications for orbiting Eve, Duna and Ike that she had yet to cash in, so I decided I'd send the crew of the Dystopia Planitia shipyard over Kerbin her way once she was in orbit. To that end, I checked space station Kerbinport for available Minnow 7 touring craft. T. Howell III was available, so the craft was fueled up and sent over to Dystopia Planitia. After transferring the crew over and receiving supplies via mass driver from the South Base outpost near KSC, Howell departed and eventually conducted a burn for rendezvous with House Atreides yesterday. Last thing that happened on Tuesday was the completion of LSV House Harkonnen's print of the Echo 2 rover and its deployment over Eve. It turned out that I didn't have the center of thrust aligned with the center of mass on the rover's deorbit stage, so I was only able to get it down to a 400x100 kilometer orbit.

After T. Howell III's burn for rendezvous first thing yesterday, I did continue with my attempts to get Echo 2 down to the surface of Eve, moving it to a 104x96 kilometer orbit successfully by imparting a low spin to the craft as it burned and reducing max thrust to 20%; it wasn't a perfect solution but it did get me pretty close to my target 100 kilometer orbit. Howell arrived at Atreides shortly afterwards and successfully docked, swapping out the crew and then departing for a rendezvous with Kerbinport with Ceri aboard. Construction of a Merde-to-the-N 7 commenced shortly thereafter, with Atreides receiving initial supplies first from South Base via mass driver. The print should complete in 41 hours assuming I can keep Atreides supplies with Rocket Parts during that period.

With the rover in position to land, I went ahead with the attempt to get Echo 2 down to the surface. After one false start, I finally managed to land the damn thing 150 kilometers off target.

Echo 2 on the surface of Eve.

Good news is that the rover is driving well. The decision to use the high stress-tolerance of Buffalo Grizzly wheels seems to have paid off and the SAFER reactor is providing much more power than it really needs. I've made it just short of 35 kilometers through Eve's Peaks and Foothills so far; still have just over a hundred klicks to go. I dare say it might actually succeed in completing Echo 1's mission, which was to find a spot in Eve's Midlands or Lowlands along the equator flat enough to establish a TBD base. Going to be quietly optimistic about this anyway...

Ended my day yesterday with a bit of what turned out to be useful nonsense, using Buffalo parts to make a quadcopter, which I dubbed the Echo Flyer 7.

Got key lighting but no back-lighting...can't really see the damn thing...

Flew pretty well actually, and since the rotors are electrically driven, the design should prove useful to explore Eve's surface. KER reports that the design at sea level on Eve will have a higher max TWR than on Kerbin (6.37 as opposed to 4.08) and will have a TWR greater than 1.0 at altitudes up to 25.8 kilometers. I'm already considering deploying a working unit to the purple planet.

Assuming I learn how to fly the damn thing properly, of course...had a few training mishaps there.

Alright, who's the wise-guy out toasting marshmallows!! Don't think I don't see you!!!!

Today I'm continuing Echo 2's drive. I also intend to get Howell over to Kerbinport, level up Ceri and get her back to Atreides, with the hope that her presence will at least double the speed at which the ongoing print job is happening (and if that doesn't happen, I'm going to assign her to Dystopia Planitia - a low priority outpost - permanently; my warp ships are too valuable to me to leave in the hands of the incompetent). Should the print job finish today, House Atreides will be heading back to Eve and hopefully I'll have a ground base there in a few days time. Not much else going on of note lately.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I've also succeeded with a CAT-III "ILS" to R9 at Koney Island, but not landed a back course approach on R27 there. I'm working also on precision approaches without the use of marker flags, too.

Rather than just a novelty, I have an expectation that this kind of landing-by-the-numbers could be very useful for landing in rough/tough places, especially with heavy or fragile equipment. (I know there are nav mods available, too, but I prefer something hand-flown, even if it's dialed in through Atmosphere Autopilot.)

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Today's activities have been dominated by my attempts at a rescue contract (well, two actually, I only finished one of them today) with my brand new Ekymia spacecraft, a re-entry pod based 2-seat spacecraft, the launcher it turns out is an SSTO.

The first attempt didn't go well, thanks to me accidentally staging twice just before orbit insertion, the capsule re-entered … a bit earlier than planned. However, I did manage to get something out of it.

A good way to pass the time between parachute full deployment and landing, paraglide around the capsule and follow it down.

Needless to say, as much fun as Jeb had, he had a job to do so it wasn't long before another Ekymiawent up to make another go at a rescue contract. This time, after a rather hectic orbit full of manoeuvres, the passenger was collected. And then I noticed something …

The Ekymia has a fair amount of Dv (over 1700m/s) and thanks to the SSTO launcher, it had nearly a full tank and it felt wrong to waste it so ...

In all fairness, I did have a contract to orbit the Mün and the mission hardware designed and ready but they were most of the way anyway and it's not like I haven't done this before (come to think of it, the Orbitan I mission went almost exactly the same way).

So I flew to the Mün, entered orbit, did a quick spacewalk survey and came home.

I'm not a good shot with Re-entries but by a fluke, I came down a couple of Kilometres east of the space centre. While Phofry watched the reports in the capsule on its final descent, I flew Jeb back to the KSC on his parachute.

Incidentally, that would be my first controlled runway landing in this save game.

Share on other sites

I've also succeeded with a CAT-III "ILS" to R9 at Koney Island, but not landed a back course approach on R27 there. I'm working also on precision approaches without the use of marker flags, too.

<snip>

Rather than just a novelty, I have an expectation that this kind of landing-by-the-numbers could be very useful for landing in rough/tough places, especially with heavy or fragile equipment. (I know there are nav mods available, too, but I prefer something hand-flown, even if it's dialed in through Atmosphere Autopilot.)

Nice. That looks like about 5 degrees? A relatively steep angle in the real world, most commercial airports are around 3

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I tested out a new 6-seat LKO tourist craft. It worked perfectly, which is fortunate since I tested it with a full load of tourists & a pilot. Pictured here with the orbital stage drifting away after the deorbit burn:

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Nice. That looks like about 5 degrees? A relatively steep angle in the real world, most commercial airports are around 3

Yes, this is why I am double-quoting the "ILS", because there's no real guide slope. It's more like a localizer approach, except, of course, you know, Kerbals. And I used "ILS" mainly to make sense of the CAT-III, "auto-land". It's more like a CAT-III GPS, if anything like that existed.

In other recent news, the KAA has just:

issued a NOTAM that all enroute arrivals to KSC landing at night must perform an IFR approach (just to keep pilots current)

approved a short strip for use just below the summit of Mt Keverest. There's a KAA Nemesis there on site to test-fly this strip and possibly set up a GPS approach to it. This strip reminds me quite strongly of Courchevel in the French Alps and Lukla in the Himalayas.

And my Kerbin Supertrek has progressed to this point, overlooking the trek's second water crossing:

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

(1.6.1.) Not a great deal to report for goings on yesterday. T. Howell III completed a rendezvous and docking with space station Kerbinport, where engineer Ceri Kerman punched her ticket for her orbital flights over Eve, Duna and Ike; this got her up to 4-star status. After refueling from the station's stores, Howell departed Kerbinport and burned to rendezvous with LSV House Atreides in a resupply orbit over Kerbin. Howell successfully docked with the warp ship and Ceri joined engineer Jergar Kerman in the ship's Bigby Workshop. By himself, Jergar (a 1-star engineer) had the workshop's efficiency rating at 3.8. Ceri raised the efficiency rating to a whopping 5.1 - not even doubling it. The plan is now for Ceri to man the Dystopia Planitia Shipyards once the two engineers have completed the ongoing print of a Merde-to-the-N 7 entry stage aboard Atreides, which should happen in a little over a day from now. Supplies from the South Base outpost near KSC were shot to Atreides twice yesterday to keep up with the demand for Rocket Parts; the craft's fuel stores also received some replenishment while I was at it.

Piddled around with the Echo Flyer 7 quadcopter a bit yesterday, continuing my efforts to learn how to fly the damn thing. Got pilot Kardon Kerman in there (she was dumb enough to volunteer). Managed to pass an important test of any VTOL design in KSP.

Still don't know how I managed to pull this off...

Sure, go ahead and look smug, Kardon...

Came to the realization during my sleep that the corresponding control to a helicopter's collective in KSP are the thrust limiters, assuming that I understand what exactly a collective does. (I'm not going to even try to broach the topic of why it's called a collective - something tells me insanity lies down that path. I hear the word "collective" and my mind jumps to the Borg...).

Biggest thing that happened yesterday was the continuation of the mission of the Echo 2 rover on the surface of Eve. Yesterday was a driving day for sure. With 109 kicks to go before it reached its original target landing zone at the beginning of the day, Echo 2 was able to go another fifteen klicks until Kerbol had gone below the horizon far enough that I could no longer see well enough to drive safely. The drive was put on hold for thirteen hours before continuing.

If you think this is an unsafe speed, you're right. To translate for y'all who don't use metric, Echo 2 is going 113.79 mph in this screenshot...

I damn near made it to the target area this morning. Alas, for a pebble...

Couldn't tell you how much this broke my damn heart. To my credit, I didn't curse out loud when it happened, though being at work at the time may have had a lot to do with that...

Fortunately, I had stopped to quicksave at the fifteen kilometer mark. I reverted to that mark just before shutting the game off this morning, and I'm very confident that Echo 2 will reach the target zone later this morning, at which point its mission of finding an equatorial site in the Midlands for a permanent TBD outpost on Eve can finally commence.

My plan for today is to finish the Echo 2 mission and to finish Atreides's print job. When both are done, Atreides will be heading back to Eve, where its new payload will (knock on wood) safely put the TBD 7d rover currently in Eve's orbit on the surface and outpost construction can begin. Been waiting a long time to get that job done, and at this point a number of tasks are riding on my being able to successfully pull this off. Hoping it won't be all for naught...

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Instead of launching rockets like a good Kerbal, I have been messing around with .dds cloud and planet texture images (in paint.net) and their configs from several visual mods (SVE/Spectra/GEA/SiFiVE/AVP/Scatterer/Gregrox Recolors via EVE).

I finally settled on the following 2 options for Laythe and Jool and would love any opinions on what you guys think looks best as I am torn between the following...